The invention relates to a process for checking a pairing of a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transmitter with a Bluetooth Low Energy receiver. The invention also relates to an arrangement with the BLE transmitter and the BLE receiver.
Bluetooth Low Energy, also called Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth Smart, Bluetooth Ultra Low Power, or Wibree, is a wireless technology that allows the networking of devices in a surrounding area of about 10 meters. Compared with other Bluetooth protocols, BLE is characterized by clearly lower power consumption and correspondingly lower costs. In 2013, Apple introduced a proprietary standard based on Bluetooth Low Energy that is known to specialists under the brand iBeacon. An iBeacon is a signal transmitter that transmits signals at fixed time intervals. As a rule, the signals comprise a so-called Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) value, a major value, and a minor value, the UUID being a 128-bit digit, and the major and minor values being 16-bit digit. As a rule, the UUID value, major value, and minor value are transmitted in plain text, unencrypted.
Now if a receiver, for example a smartphone with an application installed on it that is designed to receive and analyze iBeacon signals, comes within range of an iBeacon, the application can identify the UUID of the iBeacon and measure its signal strength. If at least three iBeacons are received, trilateration or fingerprinting processes can be used to calculate the position of the smartphone. The application can activate site-specific services on the smartphone and/or cause it to display site-specific information. This allows, for example, automatic display, on a visitor's smartphone, of specific information about special offers in a store, notes about lecture materials in an educational institution, or information about a current exhibit in museums.
Taking a specialized electronics store as an example of a store, the UUID value can be assigned to the chain of specialized electronics stores, while the major value can stand for a specific specialized store in a city, from among a number of specialized stores. The minor value can be assigned to a specialized department in the specific specialized store, for example, in the case of the specialized electronics store, the television department, the computer department, or the camera department. Now, if a customer visits the specialized store, and activates an iBeacon application of the specialized electronics store chain on his smartphone, it can be determined, on the basis of the iBeacons installed in the specialized store, whether the visitor is in the television department, the computer department, or the camera department.
This allows the iBeacon application to display, on the visitor's smartphone, targeted product information about special offers, background information on offered products, or similar things. However, since the UUID value, major value, and minor value are transferred in plain text, unencrypted, this information can also be used by other applications of third parties different from the specialized electronics store chain. For example, it is conceivable that the visitor's smartphone has a third-party application installed on it that shows the visitor product information and prices of alternative vendors, which naturally is not in the interest of the specialized electronics store chain.